Rooming houses had a variety of functions. My grandfather lived in one while a young adult; he was also a butcher at the co-op grocery, and made sure to get his landlady good cuts of meat since he knew he'd benefit at meals ;) There is some interesting history, too, of how rooming houses run by Respectable Matrons facilitated the entry of young women into the labor force and the migration of labor from rural areas to the cities. Sylvia Plath might be the most famous recent writer about this... but see [1], [2].
Last, I'm very happy to see near me a lot of development with first-floor commercial and living above that. The most recent development near where I live has 5-6 floors, of which most are apartments, but street level has a pie shop, a restaurant, dry cleaner, etc etc. I am delighted! It increases our quality of life.
[1] https://www.thecut.com/2015/03/why-i-live-in-an-all-women-bo... [2] https://www.citylab.com/life/2016/02/brief-history-of-co-liv...
They didn't. It came about because in WW2 labor wages were fixed by law. In order to attract workers, employers could not offer more pay. But they were able to offer benefits, like health insurance. It stuck because employer paid benefits were paid out of pre-tax income, while if the worker paid for them himself it would be from post-tax income.
I.e. it was cheaper to provide it through the employer, thanks to the tax code.
It stuck because of corruption since the legislature won’t fix the situation, a situation that conveniently provides a competitive benefit to large companies with lots of lobbying power versus small business and individuals.
Same garage with the pitiful restriction on IRA contributions (zero if you have a spouse that has 401k), whereas people who work for employers giving 401k get $19k.
Absolutely no reason for the discrimination to exist other than it benefits bigger, entrenched businesses at the expense of smaller businesses and individuals.
It was a product of (1) intense focus on wage freezes during the labor shortage of World War II, and (2) the growth of unions, which focused on winning concessions from management, not government.[0]
I agree it's a terrible policy. Corporate management now accepts and exploits it. But it was not a decision by 'capital' to spite labor or self-employment. It is the consequence of 'progressive' tax, regulation and labor policy.
[0]http://www.taxhistory.org/thp/readings.nsf/ArtWeb/67493CA6B8...
You don't get somewhere to live without a source of income, and our benefits system is being systematically shredded by a government ideologically opposed to the very concept (currently campaigning for tomorrow's election on a variety of lovely talking points like "poor people are just stupider" and "disabled people shouldn't have to be paid the minimum wage because they don't understand money"), but for the time being at least we have healthcare for all paid for by general taxation.
We should have housing and food for all as well, but I'm not sure anybody's seriously looked into how to do that.
Unions probably did that more than management given that at least some of it was driven by wage and price controls during certain periods. Though that's still corporations in some sense.
As the cost of health benefits increased, corporations lobbied for tax-exemptions providing this benefit. Congress gladly obliged because it seemed to be an effective way to get everyone (who mattered) insured. This really cemented our current system in place.
Interestingly war industry wages far as I saw were specified by the government contracts. They were good wages compared to pre WWII. My uncle busted out in WWII because all of his employees left for the shipyards.